Laboratory tests have confirmed that the young female grizzly bear known as 615 shot by a hunter Sept. 19, 2009 was indeed a cub of famous Jackson Hole grizzly widely known as Bear 399.

Grand Teton National Park spokeswoman Jackie Skaggs said Thursday, October 22 that results of recent DNA analysis, based on a blood specimen taken from the dead bruin, show its connection to Bear 399.

Bear 615, which, like her mother, spent much of her life in Grand Teton Park, was killed near Ditch Creek in the Bridger-Teton National Forest while feeding on a moose carcass.  The man who shot her, Stephen Westmoreland, claimed he was acting in self-defense and fear of life, though the Wyoming Game and Fish Department issued a citation to Westmoreland for killing the bear.

Bear 615 was among triplet cubs—two females and a male—born to Bear 399 in 2006.  The controversial circumstances have incited outrage among citizens within the Greater Yellowstone region and beyond.  (You can read more on the events that led to her death here ).

“Our intention is not to stir the hornet’s nest but simply to release the facts as we know them from the lab,”  Skaggs says.  “Even though a lot of people care about the fate of 399 and her cubs, we run the risk of attaching more value and weight to a particular animal than thinking more broadly about the population as a whole.  It is unfortunate that we lost a female who was approaching breeding age.”

In an interview with Grand Teton’s senior biologist Steve Cain, who has studied bears in the national park for 20 years, it was noted that 615—trapped and fitted with a radio collar in the southern end of the park this summer—exhibited none of the characteristics some associate with “problem”bears.

Although 399 and her clan were “habituated” bears, in that they frequented front country areas with many tourists, they were not food-conditioned and demonstrated no behavioral qualities that would classify them as being aggressive or dangerous to people.Bear 399 taught her cubs to feed on natural foods while navigating the labyrinth of developed areas, campgrounds and hiking trails, Cain says.

“The ability to know this lineage (between 399 and615) is really important,” he notes. “In this particular case—and I’m not speaking only of this exact bear but of all habituated bears in Grand Teton National Park—the phenomenon ofhaving bears living within close proximity to people is relatively new. This is an ongoing experiment.  When I came here 20 years ago, grizzly bears were extremely rare.  They are common now. Besides Bear 399 we’ve had a number of bears using roadside habitat.”

For many decades, nearby Yellowstone National Park was home to a notorious and now long abandoned practice of feeding grizzly and black bears at open pit food dumps.  It resulted, Cain said, in many aggressive bears that associated tourists with food rewards.  During the 20th century, several people were attacked and killed by bears. However, in recent decades with the closure of the dumps, the outlawing of feeding wildlife, and better sanitation, bears in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem have persisted on natural foods.

While wildlife managers are intolerant of food-conditioned bears because of the elevated risk of them mauling people, habituated bruins, on the other hand, have been given more latitude to re-colonize parts of Yellowstone and Grand Teton from which they had been extirpated. In fact, Bear 399 and her photogenic cubs gained fame for her visibility along the roadsides where thousands viewed her. She possessed savvy in avoiding humans and human foods.  Similarly, her daughter, Bear 615, showed no indication that she represented a danger to humans.

Cain believes she was in the southern portion of Grand Teton Park most likely trying to establish her own home territory.  As a three-year-old, she would have been reaching breeding age in another two or three years.

As large mammalian omnivores that survive by preying upon other animals, grizzlies can be dangerous. Cain says that between 1994 and 2007, five people were seriously injured—none killed— by bear maulings in the national park.  Except for one case, the cause of the attacks were mother bears defending perceived threats to cubs or people who had stumbled upon a carcass or other natural food source where bears were feeding.

In a scientific paper  titled Brown Bear Habituation to People: Safety, Risks and Benefits published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin in spring 2005, noted bear researcher Stephen Herrero and co-authors Tom Smith,Terry D. DeBruyn, Kerry Gunther and Colleen A. Matt.  Mr. Herrero is author of a widely read book on the causes of grizzly attacks and Gunther is the senior bear manager in Yellowstone.

“We conclude that managers and policy-makers must develop site-specific plans that identify the extent to which bear-to-human habituation and tolerance will be permitted,” they wrote. “The pro- posed management needs scientific underpinning. It is our belief that bear viewing, where appropriate, may promote conservation of bear populations, habitats, and ecosys- tems as it instills respect and concern in those who participate.”

In general, the researchers said, grizzlies that are able to successfully live along roadsides learn to regard humans who keep their distance, are visible,and engage in predictable behavior, to be benign.   Bear behavior is triggered by human behavior.  Many negative encounters can be avoided by humans engaging in a sensible manner, including resisting the temptation to feed and approach bears.  If bears are fed, the probability of those animals having to be killed by managers or them becoming involved in a human mauling dramatically rises.

During the summer of 2007, Grand Teton Park used 399’s easy visual access as a way to educate the public about grizzly conservation, bear behavior, habitat needs,  and the reasons for human-bear conflicts.  With rangers assigned to the roadsides to manage large numbers of people desiring to see the animals, these “teaching moments” also went a long way toward de-mythologizing grizzlies as man-eaters that represent a constant menace to humans.

Such a prevailing attitude in fact, was a major reason for grizzlies being nearly eliminated from the Lower 48 states by Anglo settlers.  At one point, there were an estimated 50,000 grizzlies in the western U.S. surviving from the Mississippi River to California. 

The grizzly, which isthe featured emblem on the state of California’s flag, has been gone there since 1922. Today, the number of grizzlies in the U.S. south of Canada is thought to be around 1,500 and found in just four states:  Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Washington.

Bear 615 was one of three grizzly bears caught and collared in research traps located in the southern part of Grand Teton that were part of an ongoing study of black bears.  Cain says it is likely that 615’s female sibling might have been among those bears.  That female today is known as Bear 610.  He hopes that Bear 610 can stay alive and help wildlife managers better understand how habituated grizzlies move through the landscape. Her survival likely depends on human factors.

This is one of the most dangerous times of the year for grizzlies with it being the heart of the elk hunting season in Jackson Hole and bears are trying to eat as much food as they can prior to denning.  It is not uncommon for hungry bears to eat the carcasses of animals shot by hunters.

“One of the things we try to stress is the importance of carrying bear spray whenever hiking or hunting,”  Skaggs says, noting that traversing bear country means people should become informed about how they can avoid encounters.

“All of the agencies realize the need for more education, more education, more education to the public,”  Cain adds.  “We are stymied a little bit on what more we can do.”